The Influence of Building Materials and Electrical Parameter Variability on Electromagnetic Wave Propagation

The article presents an analysis of the influence of building materials on the propagation of an electromagnetic wave and the values of the electric field intensity. The topics of the analysis were two types of walls (partition and load bearing) built of different building materials. Different variants of walls were considered due to the building material used: concrete, aerated concrete, solid brick, clinker bricks, and three types of hollow bricks. The requirements for structures in terms of wall thickness were taken into account. The article, using concrete as an example, also describes the influence of changes in the electrical parameters of the building material on wave propagation and the values of the field. The results concerning the influence of complex materials, such as hollow bricks, on the non-uniform distribution of the electric field were also included. Due to the different percentage share of ceramic mass in hollow bricks, the article discusses its influence on the values of the field, taking into account the variability of conductivity. The analysis was performed using the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method. The results were compared with the analytical solution. The analysis, among others, showed that with the increase in the ceramic mass in bricks, the electric field values are higher but result in an uneven distribution of the field. Using the example of hollow bricks used to build load-bearing walls, it was observed that a small modification of the hollows practically does not affect the field intensity (the difference is approx. 2%). When planning the installation of wireless networks, the best solution is walls made of ceramics with a large number of hollows, where the ceramic mass constitutes only approx. 30%. A multivariate analysis allows for a better understanding of field phenomena inside single-family homes.